If the required age-class is not available among the owner’s camels, he is obliged—according to Mālik—to obtain it, and he may be compelled to do so. Mālik based his replies to questions on this subject on the assumption that the zakāt collector would arrive.

This is because in his time the departure of the collectors was a recognised practice that took place at a season that hardly ever varied, and anyone who paid the levy before they set out was nonetheless held liable for it.

Today’s scholars, however, do not consider the collector’s arrival; they look only to the completion of the ḥawl (lunar year), which is in fact the time when the collectors used to be dispatched. If the collector were to leave before the ḥawl had elapsed, his departure would not make zakāt due; and if he took it from the owners before it had become obligatory—that is, before the year was complete—it would not be valid, according to Mālik and the others, and the owners would have to pay it again once the ḥawl was finished, for they had been wronged by that action.

An exception is when only a little time remains before the end of the ḥawl. If the ruler is just, zakāt is to be paid only to him; similarly, if the livestock owner fears that the collector will hold him liable and will not accept what he has already set aside, he may wait until the collector comes, and that is permitted, God willing.

If the collector fails to reach him for several years and then finally arrives, zakāt is assessed on whatever the collector finds in his possession for every year that has passed—unless the owner claims that the required number was not complete until the collector’s present visit, in which case zakāt is taken for the current year only, and his word about the previous years is accepted, unless he had been deliberately absconding. If he had fled, his statement is rejected and zakāt is levied on what is found with him for each year of his flight.

Some have said that his word is accepted regarding what is presently in his possession, whether he had been fleeing or not. Others have said his statement is accepted for all the years during which the collector was absent, whether he had been fleeing or not. All these views are related from Mālik and his associates, but the first is the sounder and is the established position of the school.

There is no harm in his slaughtering or selling any of the animals provided that he does not intend thereby to evade the zakāt; and camel calves are counted together with their mothers.